Strength in Numbers: The Political Power of Weak Interests

Gunnar Trumbull

Published by Harvard University Press 2012

Strength in Numbers

The Political Power of Weak Interests

Gunnar Trumbull

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067714

Overview
Contents

About this book

Many consumers feel powerless in the face of big industry’s interests. And the dominant view of economic regulators (influenced by Mancur Olson’s book The Logic of Collective Action, published in 1965) agrees with them. According to this view, diffuse interests like those of consumers are too difficult to organize and too weak to influence public policy, which is determined by the concentrated interests of industrial-strength players. Gunnar Trumbull makes the case that this view represents a misreading of both the historical record and the core logic of interest representation. Weak interests, he reveals, quite often emerge the victors in policy battles.

Based on a cross-national set of empirical case studies focused on the consumer, retail, credit, pharmaceutical, and agricultural sectors, Strength in Numbers develops an alternative model of interest representation. The central challenge in influencing public policy, Trumbull argues, is not organization but legitimation. How do diffuse consumer groups convince legislators that their aims are more legitimate than industry’s? By forging unlikely alliances among the main actors in the process: activists, industry, and regulators. Trumbull explains how these “legitimacy coalitions” form around narratives that tie their agenda to a broader public interest, such as expanded access to goods or protection against harm. Successful legitimizing tactics explain why industry has been less powerful than is commonly thought in shaping agricultural policy in Europe and pharmaceutical policy in the United States. In both instances, weak interests carried the day.

Author / Editor information

Gunnar Trumbull is Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Chapter 1. The Political Power of Weak Interests Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Three Worlds of Consumer Protection Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Chapter 3. Consumer Mobilization in Postwar France Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
Chapter 4. Interest Group Coalitions and Institutional Structures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Chapter 5. Policy Narratives and Diffuse Interest Representation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Chapter 6. The Limits of Regulatory Capture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
Chapter 7. The Limits of Lobbying Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Chapter 8. Coalitions and Collective Action Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Academics, Students, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Main content: 216
Illustrations
- Other: 2 line illustrations, 4 graphs, 5 tables

eBook

Published: October 31, 2012
ISBN: 9780674067714